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Updated Williamsburg attractions mean history does not repeat

Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia keeps the spirit of history alive with actors on the streets. Here, a colonial officer in April stirs up a revolution as tourists and fellow re-enactors look on.
Washington Post photo by Bill O'Leary

By Andrea SachsThe Washington Post

Published: Sunday, May 5, 2013 at 12:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, May 3, 2013 at 3:10 p.m.

I received a message from a revolutionary agent who, despite her 18th-century dress and speech, had no time for period delivery services. When America's freedom is at stake, and the park is closing in a few hours, we patriots cannot idle the hourglass waiting for a carrier pigeon or a horseback-riding courier.

Facts

Suggestions on where to stay, where to eat, and what to do on your trip to the Williamsburg area can be found at the end of the story.

My phone bleeped with the next clue in Colonial Williamsburg's new interactive game, “RevQuest: The Lion and the Unicorn.” Ever loyal to the American Revolution and my iPhone, I did as I was told. I could not fail Colonial Williamsburg, as it had not failed me.

My last visit to the Virginia attraction, about 10 years ago, had not fared so well. Let's just say that after a wearisome butter-churning demonstration, I switched to margarine. I also contracted a phobia of costumed actors.

But the Williamsburg of yesterday is not the same as the Williamsburg of today. History, thank my lucky stars, did not repeat itself on my most recent visit.

Over the years, Colonial Williamsburg and the satellite attractions of Yorktown, Jamestown and Busch Gardens have expanded and evolved, creating new experiences that will surprise return guests. Of course, you can still see the Smiths (tin, silver, black) laboring over their craft, and I assume the cook is still assaulting her butter. But you will also find the new in the old – text-messaging with revolutionaries, for example.

To discover Williamsburg 2.0, I returned a few weeks ago with an open mind, a rejuvenated sense of curiosity and a charged cellphone – because despite the progress, Colonial Williamsburg does not have outlets.

Birthday present

In 2007, Jamestown Settlement commemorated the 400th anniversary of the community's founding by enlarging and updating the state-operated museum, which originally opened in 1957 for the 350th milestone. The gift to America's first permanent English colony included new exhibits and galleries inside and out. A series of artifact-packed rooms, for instance, delves into the lifestyles and traditions of the English, the Powhatan Indians and African cultures; you can sample the Algonquian language, a form of which the Powhatan people spoke, and stroll down a mock English lane complete with tenements and barking dogs. The renovation plan also injected more juice into its life-size re-creations of James Fort, a Powhatan village and a landing dock with replicas of the ships that crossed the Atlantic, landing in Virginia in 1607.

At the Powhatan village, a female interpreter dressed in tawny animal skins explained that the setting was based on a 400-year-old community that lived five miles down the road. She encouraged me to step inside any of the five houses on display, where the interior decor was wall-to-wall road kill. Outside one abode, a woman sewed tiny shells onto an animal hide dress that she had created from scratch. Across the way, a woman tended a garden. She was all alone – where were all of the Powhatan men? – so I gave her a hand with the digging. I pushed the soil around using a long wooden staff with a knobby end, hoping the tractor would be invented within the next five minutes.

The village seamlessly segues into the dock and the three vessels, Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, resting quietly on the James River. Depending on the hour, you can help raise or lower the sail and the flag. Or you can just board a ship and listen to engrossing stories about the 144-day crossing. You want one? How about: Out of a total of 105 passengers and 39 crew members, only one Englishman died. The cause of death, said the sailor with the Papa Smurf beard and culottes, was that his “fat melted,” which in modern-day lingo means “heat stroke.”

Up a slight hill, kids in metal breastplates and helmets were running alongside chickens at the faux James Fort, a collection of thatched-roof buildings including an Anglican church (so Spartan), a two-room dwelling with a kitchen (fowl for dinner again?) and beds (my, what flat mattresses you have), and the governor's house, which will open this summer.

“Everything here is real, but not real-old,” said the weaponry expert in the blacksmith's forge. “I'm not going to shoot a 400-year-old musket.”

He did, however, grab a firearm off the wall and then Pied Pipered our group to an open-air stage with a back wall of trees. He warned that anyone sensitive to loud sounds should cup their hands over their ears, a primitive form of Bose noise-cancellation headsets. I still jumped, but the technique definitely softened the aural blow.

The shiniest of the new exhibits at Jamestown Settlement is “Jamestown's Legacy to the American Revolution,” which opened in March, runs through Jan. 20, 2014, and acts as a harbinger of good attractions to come. The more than 60 items on display are only squatting in Jamestown Settlement until their permanent residence at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown opens in late 2016. The facility will replace and one-up the Yorktown Victory Center with exhibits and an outdoor living-history section that sounds very familiar (hint: Jamestown Settlement).

“The new museum will give visitors a fuller picture of the American Revolution,” said Tracy Perkins, a spokeswoman with the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. “You get the full story from beginning to end.”

The storyline of the American Revolution Museum is less complete: Construction started last year and is in the parking lot phase. Not much to see, unless you are a scholar of gravel piles.

The Jamestown exhibit, meanwhile, provides a satisfying sampling of the museum-in-progress. A life-size coronation portrait of King George III and a copy of Jean-Antoine Houdon's sculpture of George Washington appropriately bookend the show. In between, I gained an appreciation of the patriots' punk sensibilities through such objects as a Bible with blacked-out references to the king and a 1765 teaspoon engraved with the saying “I love liberty” with the image of a bird escaping its cage. Fly, free bird, fly.

If you stumbled across the James Fort at Historic Jamestowne, around the bend from the settlement, you might think that the American Revolution Museum construction had migrated west. But, no, the site always looks dirty and dog-bone dug up. And it will remain so as long as William Kelso and his team of archaeologists continue to unearth structures and items from the 1607 trove.

“It's so loaded with artifacts,” said Kelso, as we stood over a trench containing a 17th-century kitchen with two clay ovens, “it's going to take us a long time to excavate the site.”

The scientists dig on weekdays, weather dependent, and encourage visitors to stand on the sidelines and cheer their progress. Guests can even earn the privilege of saying, “I was there when ...” the team discovered the chapel where Pocahontas and John Rolfe wed, or found the grave of a teenage boy killed by Native Americans, or pulled up an ivory sundial from 1610. Not to give away any great reveals, but at the kitchen dig, Kelso expects to find food remnants, cooking implements and the bones of dogs and butchered horses.

WHERE TO STAY

Williamsburg Woodlands Hotel & Suites

105 Visitor Center Drive, Williamsburg

800-447-8679

www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/stay/williamsburg-woodlands

Rates from $135.

Wedmore Place

5810 Wessex Hundred, Williamsburg

866-933-6673

www.wedmoreplace.com

Rates from $165.

WHERE TO EAT

Huzzah! BBQ Grille

113 Visitor Center Drive, Williamsburg

757-220-7692

www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/do/restaurants/resort-restaurants/huzzah

The menu features a bit of everything: pizza, salads, burgers, barbecue in many varieties (pork ribs, beef brisket, chicken). Meals from $8.50.

Riverwalk Restaurant

323 Water St., Yorktown

757-875-1522

www.riverwalkrestaurant.net

The restaurant at Yorktown's Riverwalk Landing is heavy on steak and seafood, with salads and pasta tossed into the mix. Stellar views of the York River. Dinner entrees from $17.

Pick up a map and a “RevQuest: Save the Revolution!” packet at the visitor center (open daily 8:45 a.m.-5 p.m.). Take the free shuttle or follow the walking trail to Revolutionary City. $41.95 for single-day ticket.

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